Mekare stood beside her gazing at me impassively, eyes drifting over the palm fronds, the mesh of branches that shut out the sky, as if she were listening to the birds or the insects and not to anything spoken here.

“Very well,” I said. “I came to help. I came to learn what I could.”

“Say no more! I know why you came,” she said. “You must go. I understand. I would have done the same thing if I were you. But you must tell the others never to look for us again. Never. Do you think I would ever try to hurt you, you or any of the others? My sister would never do this. She would never harm anyone. Go now.”

“What about Pacaya, the volcano?” I asked. “You can’t do this, Maharet. You can’t go into the volcano, you and Mekare. You can’t do this to us.”

“I know!” she said. It was almost a groan. A terrible deep groan of anguish.

A deep groan came out of Mekare as well, a horrid groan. It was as if her only voice were in her chest and she turned to her sister suddenly lifting her hands but only a little, and letting them drop as if she couldn’t manage to really work them at all.

“Let me talk to you,” I pleaded.

Khayman was coming towards us, and Mekare turned sharply away and moved towards him and lay against his chest and he enfolded her with his arms. Maharet stared at me. She was shaking her head, moaning as if her fevered thoughts had a little song to them of moans.

Before I could speak again, there came a heated blast of air against my face and chest. It blinded me. I thought it was the Fire Gift, and she was making an immediate mockery of her own words.

Well, Brat Prince, I thought, you gambled, you lost! And you get to die now. Here’s your personal Pacaya.

But I was merely flying backwards through the bracken again, smashing against tree trunks, and through clattering crackling branches and wet fronds. I twisted and turned with all my might trying to escape this thing, trying to flee to one side or the other, but it was driving me backwards at such speed that I was helpless.

Finally I was flung down in a grassy place, an open grassy circle of sorts, unable for a moment to move, my body aching all over. My hands and face were badly cut. My eyes were stinging. I was covered with dirt and broken leaves. I climbed to my knees and then to my feet.